[AN: I had been wondering when someone would clue in. And for the record, Jain holds the position of Spock]

If there was one stereotypical behaviour that belonged to humans - besides their suicidal combination of curiosity and insanity - it would have to be their love of gadgets.

Doctor M'Koi watched with growing skepticism as the human purchased thing after useless thing from a Pterops trader's junk collection. Giggling all the way.

They seemed to be nothing more than rectangles to M'Koi. Some with cables attached. Most without.

"Is this more 'art'?" he finally growled.

"Sort of. Entertainment art. Archival stuff. If even half of this works, then the Archivaas will love me forever. And in the meantime, I get to test and watch."

M'Koi got an education simply by hanging around and letting the human provide exposition. In ancient human history, when the Terrans started exploiting their abundance of one-way wormholes, they didn't pay much attention to who took what with them. And the colonists didn't pay much attention to what they should keep when storage space became an issue.

Humans called it the Shattering. And bits of the cultural history were presumed lost forever until some miracle rescued them from the sands of time. And since many of the data storage disks were unlabelled, the playback set-up had to cope with all known forms of media.

And after days of testing and swearing, it was ready. The young aboard the ship flocked to it, all wearing their 'sight goggles' and emitting hushed chirps of glee.

M'Koi had only watched a small sample. The goggles gave him headaches. And he thought no more of it.

Not until the day the Human giggled a lot. "M'koi," ze snorted. "K'rik," ze chortled. "Lusu," chuckle chuckle. "Ch'koff..."

This finally sawed through M'Koi's last nerve and he hollered, "What the hell has got up your nose, you blunt-eared troll?"